8/5/2025

 Tuesday, August 5, 2025

D+270/198/1263q2w

1964 US began bombing North Vietnam in response to the attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin

1966 Protesters threw rocks and bottles at Martin Luther King Jr. during a fair housing protest march at Marquette Park in Chicago 

1966 The Beatles released the single "Eleanor Rigby"

In bed at 10:30, up at 6, thinking about my DNR     

Meds, etc.  Surgery day, no morning meds.  Nothing eaten or drunk after midnight.  Antiseptic shower at 10 last night and 10 this morning.

Finally, the long-awaited day of meatotomy, cystoscopy, and fulguration.  The surgery took 40 minutes and had no complications, but I was at the hospital from 11:45 until 6:15, including 2 hours lying on a gurney in the pre-op room and about 3 hours post-op waiting to pee, a long day.   An ulcer was discovered and fulgurated.   It was located in the same area as the one that was cauterized on March 5, 202, 17 months ago.  The good news is that it was fulgurated and   I should have less pain.  The bad news is that it's clear that it may reappear.  The other bad news is that the stenosis of my meatus may also recur.  Fingers crossed.  I spent a lot of time over the past couple of weeks struggling with the issue of whether to waive my DNR instructions, a very complicated issue, and one I've discussed with Geri.  As it turned out, I wasn't asked by either the anesthesiologist or the surgeon, and I didn't raise it.

Thoughts from The Aeneid while reading Tom Friedman this morning.  There are only two lines from Virgil's epic poem that I translated for months in my Latin IV class at Leo High School: Arma virumque cano and Descensus Averno facilis est.  "I sing of arms and the man", the opening words of the poem, and "The descent to Hell is easy."  It's the latter words that I think of this morning, how rapidly, completely, and openly our national government has been altered and corrupted by Donald Trump.  How easily Steve Bannon, Russell Vought, and the Supreme Court are succeeding in deconstructing the Administrative State.  How swiftly we are descending into Hell.

Friedman's essay this morning is about the dismissal of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the defense of her dismissal by all the toadies Donald Trump and the Senate Republicans have put in positions of great governemtal power, notably Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, the Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer and the U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer.  

It wasn't only the dismissal of Erica McEntarfar because Trump didn't like last Friday's jobs report.  

In May the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, fired two top intelligence officials who oversaw an assessment that contradicted Trump’s assertions that the gang Tren de Aragua was operating under the direction of the Venezuelan regime. Their assessment undermined the dubious legal rationale Trump invoked — the rarely used 1798 Alien Enemies Act — to allow the suspected gang members to be thrown out of the country without due process.

She has also falsely accused Barack Obama and his administration of criminally interfering with the 2016 investigation of Russian meddling in the presidential election.   More to the point, she accused them of "a treasonous conspiracy" against Donald Trump.  Yesterday, United States Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the commencement of a federal grand jury investigation into whether those former government officials committed federal crimes when they assessed Russia’s actions during the 2016 election.  The 2020 bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee review contradicted the idea that there was a conspiracy by Obama administration officials against Trump, finding significant evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Then-Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the acting chair of the committee at the time, signed off on the report.  The 2019 report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller also found that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was illegal and occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion", and was welcomed by the Trump campaign as it expected to benefit from such efforts, although it found insufficient evidence of actual collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign.  Nonetheless, the Attorney General has directed the convening of a criminal grand jury investigation.

Friedman concludes his thoughts with this:

That is why, dear reader, though I am a congenital optimist, for the first time I believe that if the behavior that this administration has exhibited in just its first six months continues and is amplified for its full four years, the America you know will be gone. And I don’t know how we will get it back.

The America we have known is already gone.  We are witnessing the start of a Trumpian dictatorship.  The question is when will we fill the streets and, metaphorically, build the barricades.  A las barricadas!

Trump and Netanyahu, America and Israel.  Yesterday's Times reported that 

States and cities that boycott Israeli companies will be denied grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to grant notices posted by the agency in recent days.

The new eligibility criteria could restrict access to at least $1.9 billion earmarked for search-and-rescue equipment, emergency manager salaries and backup power systems used during blackouts, Reuters reported.

To be eligible for federal funds, the grant notices say that states and cities must follow the “terms and conditions” set forth by the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of FEMA. Since April, D.H.S. has prohibited grantees from “limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies.”

The policy underscores how the Trump administration has linked its stance on Israel to unrelated federal funding, including billions of dollars in research grants for colleges and universities. 

How can this be good for the Jews, either in Israel or in the diaspora?

Another terrible thought:  I was born during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 3rd term of office.  I will die (I hope!) during Donald Trump's 2nd term.  In my lifetime, the United States will have gone from a position of global hegemony and widespread respect, gratitude, envy, and imitation to a dictatorship under a malignant narcissist, a fraudster, a liar, a cheat, and a thief, an immoralist whom no right-thinking person would want as a friend, much less as unconstrainted leader of the nation.

Planet Fitness.  I joined yesterday for $15 per month.  The idea is to strengthen my leg muscles, especially the quadriceps.  The plan is to start when I'm recovered (whatever that means) from today's surgery.  This may be a pipe dream, but the investment is low.  Geri's right: I should simply walk more.